


And thence we came forth to see again the stars

by laragazzamagica



Series: Stars and spies [2]
Category: Rogue One: A Star Wars Story (2016), Star Wars - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst and Feels, Bodhi Rook Needs a Hug, Draven is not always a jerk, Everyone Needs A Hug, Except when he is, F/M, Fix-It, It is almost in line with canonical ANH, Post-Battle of Scarif, Somebody Lives/Not Everyone Dies, Unresolved Emotional Tension, Unresolved Romantic Tension
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-09-20
Updated: 2017-11-08
Packaged: 2018-12-31 22:12:04
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 7
Words: 13,240
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12142197
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/laragazzamagica/pseuds/laragazzamagica
Summary: Sometimes all you need in order to change a story is having been part of a football team.Bodhi is a master footballer and uses his ability to save his ship and some of his comrades. Rogue One limps back to Yavin, but woes are not over for our heroes...





	1. The Great Escape

**Author's Note:**

> Spoilers for Rogue One! But if you're here I guess you're suffering as much as me.
> 
> Also, English is not my first language, so if any turn of phrase is wrong please tell me so that I can learn from my mistakes (?)
> 
> This is exactly the same story as "E quindi uscimmo a riveder le stelle"

“You must get into position, be ready to receive. And you must destroy the planetary shield. It’s the only way to let the transmission through!” Bodhi Rook’s voice was desperate, but for once he had managed to keep it steady.

For what felt like an eternity there was no answer. Then, booming over the terrible sounds of battle coming from the open hatch behind him, Admiral Raddus’ imposing tones answered: “ _Copy, Rogue One. It will be done_.”

The faint signal went dead, but Bodhi didn’t care: he had completed his mission, Cassian’s message had been sent to the rebel fleet.

He straightened to move towards the cockpit and start the ship’s engines, but he heard a rattle on the floor beside him.

A grenade.

Without thinking, he kicked it away with all his might. The grenade flew out of the ship’s hold, landing on the sand near the palm wood’s edge, some fifteen meters away. A moment later, the bomb’s timer expired. The closest palm trees were completely shredded, others caught fire, the desperate cries of Stormtroopers torn apart by the explosion or trapped in the fire rose up from the wood. Maybe the grenade’s owner was among them.

Grunting, Bodhi got back up from the floor where the shockwave had thrown him and gaped at the destruction in front of him, incredulous of having had reflexes fast enough to save himself and his ship. For the first time in his life, having been part of the football team at the Flight Academy had served him well.

 

They had the data. They had done it. Her family’s murderer lay motionless on the floor, a crimson spot expanding on his immaculate cape. Without backward glances, Jyn Erso pulled Cassian Andor’s arm on her shoulders, since he was barely able to stand, and together they entered the turbo-lift to get down from the antenna tower of the imperial base on Scarif.

In the lift, Jyn tried the comlink, that had remained silent for a worryingly long amount of time. Without really hoping for an answer, she said wearily to the device: “Jyn Erso and Cassian Andor here, does anyone copy? Is anyone there?”

She glanced at Cassian and noticed with a pang of apprehension that he was struggling not to collapse on the floor, but for the first time since she had met him he was peaceful. His ebony colored eyes were studying her as if she had been the most precious gem in all the galaxy, as if to try to memorize her face for the rest of his life, however short it might turn out to be. His stare held certainty of their coming deaths, acceptance of their fate, regret for the future they were never meant to see. After everything they had sacrificed in this war, they would never be allowed to know peace.

Cassian’s face was so close to her, that Jyn wondered what it would be like to kiss him: it would be the simplest thing in the world, she just had to stand on her toes and contact would be inevitable. After all, even though he had had the opportunity to do it time and again, he was the only one who had never abandoned her.

“ _Bodhi here! F-finally! You are the first to c-contact me! I m-managed to send the signal to the rebel fleet and they destroyed the planetary shield, but something odd is happening. Stormtroopers are doing a cut and run, it seems they are evacuating._ ”

Well, the only one except for Bodhi, apparently.

Relief washed over Jyn: maybe they were not done for as she had believed until a second ago, after all. “Bodhi, we can’t get to the landing platform, Cassian is injured. Can you track our position and fly to pick us up?”

“ _I c-can try, leaving now._ ”

“Excellent, I’m counting on you.”

She turned off the communication, full of new hope, and smiled to Cassian, who wordlessly reciprocated.

When they got off the lift, he stoically tried to lean onto her as little as possible, but after a few steps he couldn’t take it anymore and Jyn had to support almost his full weight, causing her sprained ankle to complain rather painfully. She ignored it and, almost running, dragged Cassian on, limping, strong with the adrenaline pumped into her blood when she had heard Bodhi’s voice.

Imperial soldiers were evacuating just as the pilot had said, running chaotically along the corridors lined with shiny metal walls, rushing desperately to any available ship, without paying the slightest attention to the couple of battered, rugged fugitives.

As soon as they reached the beach outside the base, Cassian collapsed on the warm sand a few steps away from the shore, exhausted. Flopping down beside him, Jyn noticed that there was no sign of battle anywhere on the island anymore. Desperation swept over her at the thought that all the others might be dead because of her, that she would never see Chirrut and Baze again. It was too horrible to contemplate the possibility that the plans had never been received. A tiny, naive part of her suggested that maybe the base evacuation had been ordered in order to allow to as much imperial personnel as possible to escape from the Alliance’s fleet, but the silence on the comlink and Bodhi’s joy in hearing from them were strong elements against this theory.

“Look”, said Cassian pointing at the sky with his bloodied hand, his voice so weak that she almost missed it. The destroyer of worlds, her father’s other infernal spawn, the same horrible monster that had erased Jedha City from existence, hung at the horizon. She swallowed her fear, trying not to panic: she had already accepted the possibility of death in the turbo-lift, and if fate had decreed that she was to die today, at least she would die after giving the Rebellion the means to destroy that monstrosity, giving meaning to her short and sorrowful life. Instinctively, she grabbed the Kyber crystal hanging from her neck, the only keepsake her mother had left her, which was throbbing hotly in her hand.

One side of the moon-shaped object started to shine with a sickly green light. The hope for survival died in her as quickly as it had formed when hearing Bodhi’s voice: the ship would never get to them in time.

The sparkle on the Death Star became a collimated beam of light, which destroyed the enormous antenna on the roof of the imperial base, passed over their heads causing the air to fizzle and sank into the ocean. Where the ray had met the sea there was nothing anymore, only a fast expanding wave of light and incandescent plasma.

Watching her end come near, feeling breathless before that magnificent and terrifying spectacle, she gathered Cassian in her arms, in order to feel his warmth, the life that despite his injuries throbbed stubbornly in his veins, as long as possible. In another life, in another universe, if only they had met earlier, if only they had had more  _time_ , she might have loved this man, and he might have reciprocated: dying in his arms seemed to her a far better end than any she had dared to imagine.

“Your father would be proud of you, Jyn”, he murmured, clinging to her with all the strength he had left, his face hidden in her neck, and she felt grateful because these were just the words she needed to hear.

Concentrated as she was on the lapping of the waves, on the noise of the artificial wind that was picking up, on Cassian’s heartbeat, she was taken by surprise by the roar of the cargo ship. _Rogue One_! The hold was open and from the ramp three sets of arms lifted them up and hoisted onboard.

“GO, GO, GO!”, shouted one of the soldiers who had saved them towards the cockpit, and the ship accelerated at full speed even before the hold was closed. Two of the rebels, trembling, battered, limping, bleeding but alive, wonderfully _alive_ , helped them sit down and buckle up, while the third fumbled up to the cockpit, in order to help Bodhi fly.

A heartbeat later the shockwave of the air moved by the explosion hit them and the ship started to rattle even more. The cabin was filled with squeaks and screeches from joints under pressure about to yield and fold because of the air pressure. Only then Jyn realized that she was squeezing Cassian’s hand and that he reciprocated as if holding onto each other would give them the power to ward off death.

Then, suddenly, with a last bone-wrenching jolt, they were in hyperspace and the ship stopped rattling.

Bodhi and the other rebel came down to the hold laughing, high on adrenaline. “We did it! We invaded an imperial base and came out alive!”

Jyn smiled and jumped up, ignoring the pain in her ankle, and hugged the pilot so tight that he was left breathless. Then, out of elation, she hugged the other three rebels, too, ignoring the blood and grime they were covered in when she heard a light thud.

She spun around and saw that Cassian, deathly pale, had slid down on the floor. “Cassian! Bodhi, are there emergency medkits?”

Bodhi had gone white, too. “Th-th-they should be here around s-somewhere...”

“Find them! Now!” She rushed to Cassian’s side, panicking, and she whispered with urgency: “Ehi, ehi, you can’t give up, you understand? I won’t allow it!” And she added in her thoughts, desperate: ‘ _You can’t leave me now, you can’t!_ ’

 

Cassian had managed to resist keeling over until now by sheer force of will, but after the jump to hyperspace he had allowed himself to relax and the adrenaline that had kept him alert until now had vanished. The pain in his body had washed over him and had made him lose conscience for a second. Almost amused, he thought of what K-2SO would say upon seeing him in those conditions, probably some sarcastic comment about his low probabilities of survival. From the floor where he lay he saw Jyn run to him and kneel beside him, whispering his name and other things his tired mind refused to decipher. He would have wanted to tell her to stop worrying because she was safe now, to take care of Bodhi for him, that she had been the only ray of sunshine in his life for so very long, that she had given him back the hope he had lost years ago. Despite the desperation on her face, he was happy that she was with him, happy that her bright eyes would be the last thing he would see before slipping into unconsciousness.

 

‘ _Blood. Cassian’s losing blood. That’s why he’s weak. That’s why he fainted. First thing to do: stop the bleeding._ ’

Panic made her head spin, but she had to concentrate. Concentrate. The woman among the survivors, Karima, her name was Karima, handed her the medkit with urgency, but after shredding the bloodied shirt it was immediately clear that the blaster wound, almost completely cauterized by the shot itself, couldn’t be the real problem, even though it was the only one she could clearly find. She cursed at Saw for having taught her only how to kill, not how to cure.

‘ _And now? What do I do now? What should I do?_ ’

Nothing. She could do nothing, except praying.

She realized she was shaking. She managed to calm down only gripping Cassian’s wrist, which was hot, too hot, feverish, but he wasn’t a corpse, even though he might be as pale as death he wasn’t a corpse, even though he didn’t open his eyes he wasn’t a corpse, he hadn’t left her yet, he wasn’t a corpse, he wasn’t a corpse.

She had to have been quite insistent in asking Bodhi how long they had until Yavin, because the pilot took care to inform her multiple times during the four hours of flight of how far they were from Cassian’s rescue.

After the first moment of collective panic the other three rebels left her alone, staring without commenting, using on themselves the discarded medkit. Karima had even convinced her to let her ankle be bandaged.

When they finally landed on Yavin, together with the medics and the sweet whiff of hot and humid air, a group of guards boarded the ship, commanded by a sergeant who told them they were all under arrest. She didn’t flinch, but she let go of Cassian only to allow the medics to lay him to a gurney. Vaguely, she realized they were trying to rip her away from him, in order to handcuff her, but she rebelled, shouting, beating, biting. Then a Lasat lifted her in the air to keep her still and she felt a needle piercing her skin. She fell asleep almost immediately.

‘ _He’s not a corpse, he’s not a corpse, he’s not a..._ ’

 


	2. Bags of Bones

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Draven pays a visit or two.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Someone once told me: "No good deed goes unpunished".

He emerged from darkness mainly because of the pain. He was, clearly and against any expectation, still alive. His clouded brain couldn’t remember what had happened, he barely remembered his own name. And a pair of green eyes.

His body felt rigid and unresponsive, especially the left limbs; his head hurt and throbbed as if he had slept too long and every breath he drew caused a pang of pain to his chest.

Before opening his eyes, he decided to evaluate the surroundings with his other senses: if this was in hostile territory, he would have a few more seconds before anyone realized he was awake. 

He lay on an uncomfortable bunk; the air around him was thick with acrid smells, which reminded him of disinfectants and medicines but also of the rotting undergrowth of a tropical forest. He heard a fan close by and an electronic beeping which alarmed him for a moment until he realized that it was synchronized with his pulse, not the timer on a bomb. He was, presumably, in an infirmary. He heard a buzzing that was getting closer and decided to open his eyes.

He was indeed in an infirmary bed, in a room carved into the rock, surrounded by machinery. The air, hot and suffocating, was thick with humidity that condensed on the walls: assuming he was in a rebel base, the climate was undoubtedly Yavin 4’s. The buzzing came from the tracks of a medical droid.

“Good afternoon, Captain Andor. I am the medical unit 3-2B, I was charged with your care. The effects of the sedatives we used to keep you under during Bacta immersion will take between ten and twelve hours to completely vanish. I beg you not to move nor to try and make sudden movements. Your body suffered a lot of damage during your last mission. We took care of your injuries and we put in a cast the bones that were broken or cracked, but doctor Karamboola ordered to ascertain the absence of cerebral damage.” While saying this, the droid took a needle out of his right arm. Cassian noticed that the other one was completely in a cast, from below the shoulder to the palm of his hand.

Still confused, he realized with a pang of panic that he had no idea what his last mission had been. “What happened? Where’s K-2SO?”

“The unit known as K-2SO was destroyed in the battle of Scarif, during which you sustained the numerous traumas that required your hospitalization in this structure.”

Suddenly, the fog caused by anesthesia that had clogged his mind vanished and he remembered everything. The attack on Scarif. The plans. The battle. K2 who sacrificed himself to save him and Jyn.  _ Jyn! _ The eyes he had dreamed were hers. The fall in the archive shaft, the arduous climb made possible only by the irresistible desire to see those eyes again. Bodhi who miraculously dragged them away from hell. Jyn, desperate, trying to stop him from slipping into unconsciousness. How had he managed to forget all this?

“Where’s Jyn? Jyn Erso! And the pilot, Bodhi Rook? And Chirrut, Baze? Melshi? Did they manage to come back? Who else came back?  _ Where are they? _ ”

The droid’s limited intelligence had evidently not been programmed to comprehend the worry in his voice, it was too human a behavioral nuance for someone to bother incorporating it in his code and circuits. The only thing the machine noticed was that his heart rate had suddenly accelerated. “Please keep calm. Excitement does not help recovery.”

“Answer to me and I will be calm!”, he said raising his voice, trying to sit up and failing miserably. 

“I don’t possess the necessary information to answer your questions. Please keep calm, or I will have to sedate you again. The skin that was grown on the blaster wound on your side is still quite fragile, too much movement could rip it and cause a hemorrhage. The same can be said for your spleen: it is new, doctor Karamboola would be quite upset if you damaged it so soon. I beg you to maintain your laying position while I ascertain the absence of cerebral damage.”

Cassian obeyed, but couldn’t keep anxiety out of his mind.

* * *

Jyn stared at the drop of condense and drip down along one of the bars at the entrance of her cell. It wasn’t the worst cell she had ever been in, but this didn’t spark any positive feeling towards the tiny room, so humid that it would make the sultry climate of Yavin 4 on the outside of the temple seem heavenly. At least rest was good for her sprained ankle, which was healing rapidly, and the food was edible, not the foul mush she had been given at the labor camp on Wobani. Moreover, no one here was beating her or trying to murder her. Yet.

Beside hers, there was Bodhi’s cell, separated by a rock wall. The poor guy was rambling something about how obsolete T-15 Skyhoppers were and how exciting the production of the new model T-16 was, providing a plethora of technical details she was decidedly too ignorant to understand. With all his chatting Bodhi was trying to shake Jyn out of the apathy that had possessed her as soon as she had woken up behind bars, but he managed to have a hint of an answer only when he talked about Cassian. 

She let him talk. When the chatter started to annoy her, she reminded herself that the only time she had asked him to stop the pilot had been seized by a paralyzing panic attack after a few minutes of silence, during which she had heard him repeat multiple times: “ _ Bor Gullet knows… Bor Gullet sees... _ ”. Thus in the evenings, at bedtime, she forced herself to monologue, recounting the plot of holodramas she had happened to see or of novels she had snagged in some rummage sale until she heard a very soft snoring coming from the other cell. 

Then, during the night, they both happened to wake up screaming in terror, because of dreams where the dreadful memories of the past two weeks were tangled together and in those moments Bodhi’s presence seemed a blessing. 

She interrupted Bodhi’s monologue with a voice made hoarse by her prolonged silence. “It’s almost time”, she said, staring at the shaft of natural light lighting the corridor from some distant window. 

“Do you think he’ll come today, too?”

“Do you think he won’t? That…  _ Draven _ … is a droid, not a man.”

Bodhi chuckled nervously. “Well, as long as he only asks questions it can’t be so bad, can it?”

“Sure, right.”

Something in her tone made the pilot shiver. “Wh-what do you mean?”

“He might soon get tired of only asking questions.”

Bodhi understood and decided he had been better off not knowing. He realized he was shaking like a leaf. He had never thought himself a brave man.

Jyn didn’t like his silence and for a second she was about to reassure him, that the Alliance considered Saw Gerrera a dangerous extremist and would never resort, like him, to torture to extract information, but she bit her tongue before speaking. What did she know about rebels? She had known Saw and she believed she now knew Cassian, but she was completely in the dark regarding Draven’s methods. She surely didn’t expect anything good, since she was almost completely certain it was him who had ordered Cassian to murder her father without the knowledge of any other member of the Council of the Rebellion.

She shook herself away from these thoughts. Bodhi. He was here now, she had to take care of him. “Don’t worry, we’ll find a way to get out of here.” She stretched her hand blindly through the bars towards the other cell and Bodhi took it, his breathing almost immediately calmed down. 

The silence in the corridor stretched out a few minutes until, exactly at the same time as on the previous days, they heard Draven’s footsteps come towards them.

Bodhi snapped to his feet and leaned out of the cell as much as the bars allowed. Jyn, on the other hand, returned to her usual position, sitting on the humid slab of rock that doubled as bunk, staring intently the moss on the wall in front of her. 

“Morning, general!”, said Bodhi, trying to draw some goodwill.

Draven didn’t answer. He looked alternatively at the two cells for a few seconds, then said: “I want you to relate in detail your adventure on Scarif again.”

“Oh, but… Yes, sure, g-general, sir, as you w-wish...” And Bodhi, stammering, started recounting again his misadventures from when he had deserted from the Empire on Jedha to the end of the battle. 

Draven listened intently, standing before the pilot. At the end of the tale he turned from Bodhi and went towards the other cell, where Jyn had remained perfectly still all this time, completely absorbed in the observation of the local flora. “Your turn.”

The only reaction from Jyn was a bored glance, after which she got back to stare at her wall.  

“Erso, I said it is your turn.”

This time there was an edge of impatience in his tone and Jyn, satisfied of having annoyed him, deigned to turn her attention to him with a cruel smirk. “I already told you everything five times, general, I might run the risk to bore you. And then, you should start to reward us somehow. I don’t know, with a shower and clean clothes, since we both smell like a decomposing Rancor, or with some news of Captain Andor.” She heard Bodhi hold his breath. She had given her last words much more emphasis than she had intended, but she needed to know what had happened to Cassian and she knew very well that Bodhi was as worried as she was.

“The Rebellion owes you nothing, girl, neither to you nor to this bag of bones. Now report again.”

Jyn acted out of impulse, which she later regretted. Faster than what human eye could see, she slipped a hand through the bars and grabbed Draven’s arm, twisting it behind his back. “Where’s Cassian,  _ sleemo _ ? How is he? Tell me or I’ll rip your arm out!”

She had barely finished hissing her threat to the general’s ear when he pushed a button on the control panel beside the cell with his free hand, electrifying the door bars. Jyn was thrown backwards on the floor, where she remained still, groaning silently, stunned by the electric shock and the hard contact with the floor.

“I had warned you, girl. You are owed nothing. You bewitched my best man, you took my soldiers to die. And thanks to your father’s infernal machine, whose heroism you sing so often, Alderaan was destroyed today! Reduced to a bunch of asteroids, no survivor. You’ll be happy, I suppose!” With these angry words, Draven disappeared.

In the other cell, Bodhi had started sobbing at the news, but Jyn wouldn’t have the strength to soothe him even if she had managed to rise from the floor.

‘ _ Alderaan. Destroyed. No survivor. Destroyed. Two billion inhabitants. Dead. _ ’

She found she couldn’t even weep. She dragged herself towards the sink and vomited.

* * *

General Draven entered the infirmary just after the end of the neurological exam. “How is he?”, he barked to the medical droid, examining with the corner of his eye the broken body lying on the bunk beside the machine.

“Captain Andor presents no cerebral damage, even though he suffered a strong concussion. Upon his admission, a surgical procedure was performed by doctor Karamboola to stop an internal haemorrhage. Other injuries, which included a rather deep blaster wound to the right side, were cured by Bacta immersion. There were some pulled muscles, by now almost completely healed. There are some fractured and cracked bones which cannot be healed with Bacta, in various places in the left arm, the left tibia, the left cheeckbone, ribs number...”

“Stop. Will he live?”

“Yes, sir, I can assert with a probability of 94.3% that Captain Andor’s life is not in danger. The prognosis is a complete recovery in about 40 days, as confirmed by doctor Karamboola.”

“Good. Now deactivate for an hour.”

“As you wish, general”, and the droid shut down.

Draven sat on a chair beside the bed and gazed sternly upon Cassian for a few moments, who was unsuccessfully trying to sit up. The man in front of him had been his best spy, his most reliable soldier, heck, he had been almost a son to him, until he had decided to follow that crazy girl, Erso, in a suicide mission dragging with him most of the rebel fleet without any tangible result, and this was something Draven couldn’t forgive easily. 

As happy as he was that Cassian hadn't perished on Scarif, an unjustified desertion such as his would inevitably lead to a court-martial. In that case, he could only hope that his influence as general would be enough to convert a death sentence to life imprisonment. 

Finally, he forced himself to speak. “At ease, Andor. There's no need to salute in your condition.”

Cassian fell back on the bunk and sighed. “Thank you, General.”

Draven kept silent for a few more seconds, then rage got the better of him. “What in the galaxy possessed you to act against an explicit decision of the Council and take our forces to Scarif.” It wasn't a real question, it was an accusation expressed in the tone a wounded father might have used at the betrayal of his favorite son.

Cassian, then, told him of the fire he had seen in Jyn's eyes, the need for redemption after a life spent committing atrocities that tied her to him and all the other members of the volunteer squad he had put together for her. He recounted of having disobeyed his orders to eliminate Galen Erso because when he had had him in the scope of his sniper’s rifle the trail of blood he had been leaving behind for years had overwhelmed him, leaving him empty and with a soul torn by remorse. He said that Jyn had given him a purpose that might pull him out of the lake of blood he was drowning in and that after having transmitted the Death Star plans to the fleet he had been ready to die and he would die, if not happy, at least at peace with himself.

He had spoken almost without drawing breath and when he stopped he was surprised to find that his voice had broken and his face was covered in tears. Draven was looking at him with an expression that should have been unreadable but revealed pity and disgust at the same time. Again, the general was silent for a long time, then, with a grave voice, he asked him to report on the mission, without leaving out any detail.

When Cassian was done, the general rose from his seat and started pacing around the room. “The problem, Andor, is that the plans of the so called Death Star never reached Base One. Moreover, the battle has cost us a third of our fleet and thousands of soldiers, princess Organa has vanished into thin air and…” He stopped. Cassian had gotten even paler and tense. Seeing the effect his words had on the young man, the general didn't have the heart to continue and tell him about Alderaan. “So you understand the bind I'm in. I have six survivors from the ground battle, three of whom are private who didn't see nor understand anything. Of the remaining three, two had strong ties to the Empire in the past. I have witnesses who tell me that a huge amount of data was transmitted from the Imperial base to the flagship of our fleet, which, though, was boarded by Imperial troops and has gone missing. You and the girl tell me the same thing, that the transmitted data were the Death Star plans, but she might be an Imperial spy and might have compromised you."

"What?!" Cassian didn't know what to say: the suspicion that Jyn might be an Imperial mole, after having seen her fight bravely for the Rebellion, sounded like heresy to his ears. Bodhi, on the other hand, was too sincere to good to be… well… like him.

“It's a possibility I can't rule out. Right now, she and the pilot are in jail. I interrogated them summarily when I will have somewhat restored my forces I will try to interrogate them more… persuasively.” 

Cassian’s blood turned to ice in his veins. “You can’t torture them, they are...”

“As I said, Andor, you might be compromised, and you’re not rotting with them only because I can’t believe, in any way, that you would voluntarily help the Empire. I put you under house arrest, you are not allowed visitors nor can you exit this room.” The general went towards the door. On the threshold he turned as if to say something, but thought better of it and disappeared, leaving Cassian in a deeper anguish than he had ever felt.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And next time... A New Hope comes to our heroes!


	3. Twinkle, twinkle little Death Star...

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A New Hope has arrived!

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I will get my master's degree tomorrow, so of course I'm not practicing my presentation but I'm writing about our favourite galactic heroes.

On the eighth day after the battle of Scarif, the rebel base was engulfed in so much turmoil that the chaos could be heard even from the isolated cells where Jyn and Bodhi were kept. The confirmation that something extraordinary had happened came when general Draven visited his two prisoners much earlier than usual. This time Jyn, instead of acting bored as usual, mimicked Bodhi and jumped up to the door. They had to wait for the rebel general to make his way, at a much slower pace than usual, to their cells before he started talking. 

“It appears”, he said, his voice slow and dreamy, without looking at either prisoner, “that you’ve earned that shower after all.” He finally lifted his gaze to the cells. “It appears you’re heroes of the Rebellion after all.”

Jyn and Bodhi kept still, disbelieving, not wanting to break the spell the general seemed to be under.

Draven then did something Jyn would never suspect him to be capable of: he smiled heartily. “The Death Star plans have been recovered! We are still analyzing them, but it seems we owe you much more than our excuses.”

* * *

 

When Draven got to Cassian, he had just managed to stand with the help of the droid. The effect of the sedatives that had kept him under for days had finally completely vanished and it didn’t fog his mind nor paralyzed his limbs anymore. On the other hand, the diffuse pain he had felt when he had awakened had concentrated on his broken bones and drawing breath had become even more painful.

Seeing the general, Cassian slipped out of the droid’s hold and, with his healthy hand, saluted. To his amazement, Draven ignored him and took him by the shoulders with a happy expression on his face.

“Ehm, general?”

“My boy, senator Organa delivered the plans to us”, he said, delighted. “Arrests for you, the girl and the pilot were revoked and the  _ Rogue One _ mission was retroactively authorized. You won’t be court-martialled!” The general seemed even more relieved than him because of this, so much so that he made a clumsy movement as if he had wanted to hug him, but immediately decided against it and shied away, clearing his throat awkwardly. “In an hour there will be a meeting to present our analysts’ results. Let’s hope that with a bit of luck they will have found Galen Erso’s trap. You are requested to take part as  _ hero _ of the Rebellion. Look smart, there will be a princess.”

With a last glare to the scraggly beard Cassian was sporting by now and an embarrassed pat on the shoulder, the general saluted, spun on his heels and went away before Cassian found the words to reply in any way. Hero of the Rebellion. It had such a good sound to it.

He kept gaping at the door Draven had disappeared through for a few seconds, uncertain if he should jump with joy or be perplexed at the general’s conduct. Probably jumping would not be the best idea in his condition. The droid offered a bundle of new clothes and helped him wear them instead of the hospital gown, then helped him to a mirror so that he could shave.

As usual, he felt he disliked the face staring at him from the looking glass. It was the face of a murderer, a traitor, prematurely aged by war and interstellar travel. Even ignoring the scruffy beard and the unruly hair, things were made worse by the swelling on the cheekbone and the scar the surgeon (invisible and mysterious doctor Karamboola) had left after repositioning the splinters of bone at the right place.

He wondered if anyone could ever like his face and unintentionally thought of Jyn. He immediately reproached himself for being so stupid: he had spent with her little more than a week, during most of which she had despised him. No, thinking of Jyn was useless, he decided, better to think about princess Organa, he would try to make himself presentable for her. 

 

One hour later, he appeared in the small amphitheater used as briefing room. The medical droid had attached a metal exoskeleton to his plastered leg so as to allow him to move (slowly and with a limp) on his own and had attached a bandage soaked in Bacta on his side in order to stop the fragile new skin from ripping.

Upon his arrival, Draven beckoned him to move closer. He was witnessing a dialogue between senator Mothma and a much younger and attractive woman, who he recognized as Princess Leia Organa, senator of Alderaan. 

The princess offered him her hand with a smile. “Captain Andor, it is a pleasure to meet you. The Rebellion is in much in debt to you.”

Cassian kissed the proffered hand, as custom in the Core demanded. “The Rebellion is much in debt with your Highness, too, if I’m not mistaken. I was told you showed great courage, Princess.”

Satisfied with his deference, the Princess smiled for a moment more and then turned her attention back from him to the other senator. “The Senate was actually disbanded, then? I hoped it was just one of Tarkin’s tricks.”

“My dearest, it sadly is the truth. The news reached us just before that of Alderaan’s destruction. All this is extremely painful...”

Cassian felt suddenly faint and for a second risked losing his balance: so the destroyer of worlds had been used again, this time it had annihilated a planet. A whole planet, billions of sentients, each with a family, dreams, hopes, plans…

_ A fireball expanding and drawing closer… A heavenly beach lighted by an unnatural light… _

He barely managed to fight nausea and looked at the Princess again, looking for the signs this tragedy had left on her, but the only reaction he caught was a slight trembling of a lip, immediately stopped by an iron will: the Princess didn’t want pity, she wanted a swift and brutal revenge against the Empire that had exterminated her family and her people, the destruction of the Death Star was the means she would obtain it. With difficulty, he forced himself to put aside his horror for Alderaan’s fate, following the Princess’s example: the time for mourning would come later, now was the time to fight. Though with some difficulty, he managed to breathe again. ‘ _ Por la Fuerza... _ ’

Since the attention the Princess had chosen to bestow on him had already ended, he allowed himself to take a cursory glance at the multitude of people flowing into the room and was startled seeing Jyn and Bodhi advancing towards him, smiling from ear to ear. They were still covered in scratches and bruises from the battle, but both looked cleaner than ever. The ragged clothes they had worn on Scarif had been replaced by uniforms very similar to his own.

Bodhi sprinted and reached him first. He took his right hand with both of his, so warmly that Cassian joked: “Ehi, easy, you’ll break this one, too!”

Bodhi relaxed his hold a bit but didn’t let him go and burst into an agitated stutter. “I’m s-so happy you’re alive, Cassian! Yo-you know, for a bit we feared we’d lost you and then we came here and D-draven didn’t want to tell us anything about you, not e-even whether you were dead or alive, and Jyn almost b-beat him for it but he didn’t speak all the same! Oh, my friend, please t-try not to die in the close future, can you?”

They had been worried about him? At the thought, a warm, pleasant feeling spread in his chest, even though at the same time he felt sick at heart thinking that Bodhi and Jyn,  _ his friends who worried about him _ , had suffered because of him. He realized that Bodhi,  _ his pilot friend _ , was still waiting for an answer with an expectant look. “I will,  _ mi amigo _ .”

He turned towards Jyn, who was still limping towards them, but, before he could say a word, general Dodonna started the briefing asking the attendants to sit down. 

Draven put a hand on his shoulder. “I need you down here, in case they ask you to report.”

Cassian barely managed to shoot Jyn one last glance before being dragged away.

* * *

 

Jyn sat down on the sidelines with Bodhi. When she had entered the briefing room, a few minutes earlier, she had almost jumped with joy (almost, her ankle still somewhat hurt) seeing Cassian alive and on his feet beside Draven, Mothma and a girl younger than she was, with chestnut hair braided in a funny way. Now she had lost sight of him, Jyn could only remember the stunning smile he had made when he had seen her. A bright, happy smile. A smile that, in contrast with the smirks and grins he had previously shown her, lighted his eyes and suited his face much more than any other expression. He had fixed his moustache and trimmed his beard. Jyn had to admit to herself that when he wasn’t covered in mud, dust and grime he was very easy on the eyes, especially when he smiled in that way.

She was so deep in thought that almost jumped when Bodhi called her to attract her attention. “Jyn, Jyn, look! I know that guy, that’s Wedge Antilles! He was a cadet in my class before he was selected as a fighter pilot! I didn’t know he had deserted, too! I wonder if he remembers me. He was the best of our group, a living legend...”

He was interrupted by the old, white-haired general, who started explaining what the analysts had found in the Death Star plans. As her father Galen had said, there was a trap, a shaft that led directly to the station’s main reactor. Hitting the reactor with an explosive charge, the whole station would blow up. She sighed and gripped Bodhi’s arm, relieved of having done her duty, of having redeemed her father’s memory. 

Then, while the old man was still speaking, she saw Draven exit the room trailing a private and come back after a few seconds. As soon as the canescent general finished presenting the most vital details, Draven stood beside him and addressed the audience with a grave face. “I’m sorry but I have to interrupt the briefing immediately. I was told that the Death Star has just entered the system. We must assume that the ship Princess Organa traveled with was tracked and that the Empire is aware of our current position. At the speed the Death Star is traveling at present, this base will be within reach of its main weapon in 27 minutes. The moment to verify the accuracy of this information and your ability as pilots has arrived earlier than expected. Pilots, report to your squadron leaders, and may the Force be with you.” 


	4. If we only live once, I wanna die with you

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The Death Star has arrived! And it wants revenge!

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So now I have a master's degree and I can write at will.

Jyn froze. Her father’s trap was too well hidden, there was too little time for the pilots to find it. The Rebellion was doomed. Was this her fate, then, to escape the planet killer twice only to perish at their third encounter? 

"Jyn." Bodhi had risen and was looking around, with shaky hands but a steady gaze. “I’m… I’m a pilot, I have to go.”

“What are you talking about? You flew cargo ships, you’re not a fighter pilot!”

“All the same, I have to go. They might need me anyway.”

"Bodhi..."

“I won’t stay here waiting for that… that nightmare to blast the ground open under my f-feet. I’m a pilot. If I have to die, I’d rather do it in space, that’s my place.”

“But you can’t…”

“Jyn. Please.”

“But...”

“Please.”

“Argh, all right, okay. If you’ve quite made up your mind then I’ll come with you.”

"Can you fly?"

Jyn shrugged. “No, but I might be useful in some other way.” ‘ _ And I wouldn’t know what else to do _ ’. Bodhi was right: right now, the only thing scaring her more than death was the idea of waiting to die sitting on her hands. On top of that, she would be alone.

Bodhi nodded and started after the other pilots. Before limping after him, Jyn glanced one last time around the emptying room, but could see no sign of Cassian.

* * *

 

“Cargo pilot? Perfect, perfect, come with me, come, come this way.” The Besalisk mechanic was huge, flaky and slightly repulsive, not exactly the kind of sentient that would make a former Imperial feel comfortable, but his friendly manners made Bodhi feel a little better, even though he would have preferred it if the mechanic had removed his huge, wrinkly hands from his body: one hand covered half of his back, the other was wrapped around his shoulder and his upper arm.

“Here we go. Ain’t she a beauty?”

They had arrived at an ancient, minuscule commercial transport ship which looked ready to fall to pieces any second.

“Ah, ehm, yes, r-really beautiful, but what am I supposed to do with this, ehm, work of art?”

“Fly it, of course! Ain’t you a cargo pilot? The higher-ups must be evacuated, you are the only one who didn’t come to me as a fighter pilot, so the job is yours!”

“Ah. Ok. I get it. Well, this is a j-job, too, I guess...”

“Excellent. I’ll inform someone in charge that we’ve found a pilot. ”

“A-All right. Give me ten minutes, though, I have to make sure that this piece of junk… Ehm, fine vehicle won’t explode when I turn it on.”

“You mustn’t worry about that! I’ve checked meself multiple times. Multiple times!” The alien walked away chuckling, repeating to himself: “Multiple times!”. Bodhi was left alone with the ship that, he was sure of it, would turn out to be a death trap. This wasn’t exactly how he had imagined he would make himself useful to the Rebellion, but going from transporting Kyber crystals to ferrying the political head-figures of the Alliance could be considered as a promotion, after all.

He sighed and got nervously to work, checking the ship despite the mechanic’s reassurances.

_ ‘...I’m the pilot, I’m the pilot, I’m the pilot...’ _

* * *

 

Jyn glanced around feeling lost, without knowing what to do. She had remained alone in the main hangar after Bodhi had been dragged away by the Besalisk and everyone around her looked too busy to assign her a task. The sirens kept ringing the proximity alarm, the pilots were running towards their ships, the technicians were running their last checks. She would have given anything in her possession to be able to do something to do to help the fighters and increase their chances of success. Fear gave strength to the inner voice that ordered her to run away from this hellish moon, as quickly and as soon as possible.

The bombers left just as the PA system said: “19 minutes before being in the Death Star’s range.”

The ground personnel scattered and the hangar quickly emptied. Jyn decided she should try to reach the Command Centre, where she would at least know something about the attack. She fumbled around through the deserted corridors, limping, struggling to remember the route she had been taken along two weeks earlier when she had been hired to find Saw Gerrera and her father.

When she finally found the Command Centre, the PA had already announced that the countdown was down to under five minutes. The big room soaked in darkness was full of people but no one dared make a sound, in order to listen to the frenzied chatter of the fighter pilots. Some sentients were holding hands, others were crying quietly. 

Jyn recognized, standing around the central table, generals Dodonna, Draven and the young woman whose hand Cassian had kissed less than an hour earlier. Cassian was nowhere to be seen. Jyn felt suddenly uneasy in that room where she couldn’t connect with anyone listening to disembodied voices on the PA for which she had no context, but being there was better than waiting for her end in an empty corridor. Maybe. 

Three minutes.

She realized that Draven had noticed her and was staring at her. She didn’t know what he wanted from her, but for once she wasn’t in the mood nor had the strength to hate him and his disagreeable but now familiar face gave her a bit of comfort. After a couple of seconds, the general nodded his head towards the darkest corner of the room and turned his attention back to the battle. 

Puzzled, she directed her gaze in the direction he had pointed and she felt a joyful thrill: Cassian was there. She rushed to him sneaking through the crowd, paying more attention than usual not to jostle anyone. He didn’t notice her, concentrated as he was on the battle. On his worried face there was no trace of the smile he had sported earlier. She moved closer and brushed his uninjured arm. Cassian turned sharply but some of the tension of his face eased away upon seeing her and he immediately grabbed her hands. Neither of them broke eye contact nor wriggled out of the other’s grasp. After all, being together had already exorcized multiple time the fiery death the planet killer had tried to inflict upon them.

“ _ The Death Star has cleared the planet. _ ”

She was close enough to smell the leather of his jacket and the faint whiff of Bacta still lingering about him. In Cassian’s eyes she saw the same sadness she felt in her heart. She didn’t want to die, and it was only this man’s fault if she now yearned to live. She didn’t dare to hug him as she had done on Scarif, not amidst all these motionless people, even though she desperately desired the comfort it would give her. He made a sad smirk and he gently brushed her cheek with his good hand. Jyn hoped that death would be instantaneous so that his caress would be the last thing she felt. 

“ _ You’re all clear, kid. Let’s blow this thing and go home! _ ”

A sudden storm of static blocked all communications for a few seconds. When the radio started working again, the voices of the surviving pilots on the PA had gotten joyous:  _ the Death Star had been destroyed! _ Cries of joy and celebratory screams echoed on the living rock walls of the Command Centre, everyone competed to shake hands with their neighbours, hugging, kissing, jumping excitedly. 

_ They were still alive. The monster had been destroyed, her father avenged and they were still alive. _ Jyn let herself loose and threw her arms around Cassian’s neck, with so much force that his ribs made him gasp with pain. She moved to break away, mortified, but he held her firmly, a bit awkwardly because of his plastered arm.

They remained tangled together without speaking for a long time, an oasis of calm amidst the increasingly animated celebration, until a horde of strangers demanded to congratulate them for the narrow escape, too, tearing them away from each other.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Poor Draven, he doesn't quite know what to do with Jyn...


	5. Show me how to be whole again

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Bodhi realizes something he had missed.

‘ _...I’m the pilot, I’m the pilot, I’m the pilot... _ ’

From space, Base One looked like a tiny green marble. If he had reached out for it, he might have held it between his fingers. He would soon have to do it because Grandma was about to call him home to dinner and if he had lost one of his cousin’s marbles, he would be pummeled. Luckily he could fly and he might be able to flee with his mother’s Skyhopper and hide amidst the eternal storms of Yavin 4.

‘ _...I’m the pilot, I’m the pilot, I’m the pilot... _ ’

The ship was about five light-seconds away from the moon, hidden from the Death Star’s view by the crimson atmosphere of the gas giant. 

‘ _...I’m the pilot, I’m the pilot, I’m the pilot... _ ’

Mothma had asked Bodhi to calculate the jump to hyperspace but to remain in the system until the last possible second, in order to witness, one way or the other, the outcome of the space battle, which they were following live on the radio. The task didn’t sound that difficult, but calculations for the hyperspace jump had to be executed on each trip because of the continuous movement of celestial bodies. Thus delaying their departure meant Bodhi had to recalculate the route every two minutes if he wanted to avoid the risk of colliding with an alien planet or an errant star. 

‘ _...I’m the pilot, I’m the pilot, I’m the pilot... _ ’

Entering hyperspace was one of the most difficult duties a pilot had: not only did it require to be able to use the navicomputer perfectly, it also called for quick reflexes and the ability to exploit the subtle changes in the hyperspace lanes without destroying the ship. The latter requirement was the reason why the presence of sentient pilots aboard a ship was vital. Two minutes weren’t remotely enough to recalculate the whole jump from scratch, but luckily Bodhi could use the calculations he had executed two minutes earlier in order to shorten the computation time. He was aware he wasn’t at the top of his game since Bor Gullet had slipped its tentacles in his head, but at least the added effort diverted his attention from the fact that he was transporting half a dozen (former) senators and most of all it allowed him to bury the guilt he felt for having left Jyn and Cassian planetside. 

‘ _ The Death Star has cleared the planet. _ ’

Nononono, Base One could not be annihilated like Alderaan, like the Citadel on Scarif, like the Holy City on Jedha…  _ Jedha… He had seen Jedha fall under his eyes. _

Something clicked inside him and another piece of his messed up mind returned to where it belonged.

‘ _...I’m the pilot, I’m the… I am Bodhi Rook, son of Saima Rook, 25 years of age, born in the Holy City of Jedha… which was destroyed… It was destroyed! _ ’

His whole family had been exterminated in the blink of an eye and he hadn’t even realized  _ for days _ . He gripped the console in front of him, his heart filled with horror. Vaguely, he heard something about a  _ Red Five _ that he couldn’t understand, then the radio was filled with static noise and cries of joy. ‘ _ The Death Star has been destroyed! _ ’

He burst into tears of sadness and relief at the same time, for his family, for Galen, for the inhabitants of Jedha and Alderaan, for the galaxy which, from that moment on, was a slightly safer place, for Jyn and Cassian who were safe and sound and waiting for him on Base One.

He never knew how long he cried. He managed to stop only when Mothma gently laid a hand on his shoulder, saying only: “Thank you. For everything.”

With his illustrious passengers’ permission, Bodhi, having dried his tears with shaky hands, directed the ship back to Base One.

‘ _ I  _ am _ the pilot. We did it, Galen. Thank you. Take care of my family as I will take care of Jyn. _ ’

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Poor Bodhi really needs a hug.


	6. We are Shadowriders, on our Way to the Light

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jyn and Cassian finally get to have a decent conversation and Jyn has to make a decision for her future.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It took longer than I thought to post this, RL got in the way :/

Jyn hated crowds. She always felt uneasy among crowds. Crowds could hide any kind of danger. In a crowd it was impossible to monitor all that was happening, there was always someone who shoved you around, who took the chance to grope, who pickpocketed (like her), who simply stank more than average giving off a disgusting stench. She had had enough of being surrounded by strangers. Moreover, she was rather annoyed that for the second time today she hadn’t managed to exchange a word with Cassian.

She dove into a side passage which luckily was deserted and she leaned against the lukewarm stone covered in the sweetish smelling moss which was apparently ubiquitous inside the base. Her hand nearly flew instinctively to her mother’s pendant, but she stopped herself fearing some passing soldier might see it and decide to steal it.

Bottles of booze, whose content would probably give an ulcer to a Rancor, started appearing in the main corridor. She started to move away seeing some rebels, looking for a quiet place to drink, head towards her hiding place but she was saved by a new announcement on the PA system.

“ _ To all personnel, prepare for full evacuation of the base. Minus 180 minutes to evacuation. All personnel is requested to act by emergency procedure 404. I repeat... _ ”

The crowd suddenly stopped partying and it rapidly dispersed while the PA system kept repeating its announcement.

Jyn stayed in her corridor a few more seconds to brood, unsure on what to do: she didn’t feel in any way part of the Alliance which had killed her father, and yet she couldn’t imagine a future completely disconnected from it. She was torn between the desire to leave everything behind, going back to her previous existence, and the wish to change, be a better person, lend a hand to make the galaxy a better place.

Cassian had made her see how important it was to have a purpose and her father had given her one, but now that Galen’s memory was avenged Jyn felt empty and without guidance. 

Her old instinct to run away from any ugly situation was shouting at her to go to the hangar, take the first ship out of here and lose herself again among lowlives. She silenced it, at least for now: she couldn’t conceive leaving before saying farewell to Bodhi and Cassian. The base was being evacuated anyway, so in few hours there would be a number of ships ready to take her away from here. 

‘ _ Right _ ’, she told herself, ‘ _ I’ll do what Cassian would do: I’ll go to someone to ask for orders, so maybe I won’t be condemned to stay still sitting on my hands for the next three hours. _ ’ She just wished she wouldn’t have to ask Draven. She wished it so much that going back to the command center she gripped her mother’s pendant and prayed: ‘ _ not Draven, not Draven... _ ’

The Force listened to her, evidently, because on the door she almost collided with a man limping more than she was.

“Jyn!”

“Cassian!” Stumbling into him made her so happy that she almost hugged him again, but she held back seeing the white-dressed girl step out of the door behind him. 

Cassian was the first to recover from the surprise. “Jyn, we were just coming to look for you. This is Princess Leia Organa of Alderaan...”

“My dearest, how pleased I am to meet you!”, said the princess, interrupting Cassian, drawing close and taking her hand. 

' _ Alderaan?!?’ _ Jyn panicked, nausea twisted her stomach and she would have run for the hills if she hadn’t already been captured. She had to concentrate her gaze on the girl’s lips to understand what she was saying. 

“We owe so much to you and your father, we owe you everything! With your courage you enabled the Alliance to survive and, thanks to you, today we have inflicted a hard blow to the imperial forces! In order to honor those who gave a pivotal contribution to our victory, we are organizing a small ceremony that will take place in a couple of hours, just before the evacuation. We would like to confer an award to you, Captain Andor, the pilot Bodhi Rook and the three brave privates who came back with you on Rogue One, and of course your father will be remembered with a particular commendation...” 

Jyn, drowning in that torrent of words, stared open-mouthed at the princess, still looking for a way to escape and make the sickness stop, and she barely managed to stammer some word of thanks to her. 

“Very well, my dearest, it was a real pleasure talking to you. Now I would beg you to excuse me, I have to speak to general Dodonna so that everything goes smoothly. See you later, dearest, to be sure!” And the princess left among a whirl of robes after friendly squeezing her hand one last time.

As soon as the princess had disappeared into the corridor, Cassian drew up to her with a concerned look, as she had petrified. “Are you all right?”

Now that the princess wasn’t there to distract her anymore, a sour sickness rose in her again, the humid and badly lit corridor started spinning around her. She leaned with her hand on the closes wall and she tightened her eyelids shut.

_ Breath. Breath. _

The world slowed down and her nausea swelled down enough to allow her to answer: “Have you heard about Alderaan?” In that moment she hated herself deeply because, with so many things she needed to discuss with him, after so many times she had imagined or dreamed her next encounter, the first words she said to him after begging him not to die would surely give him grief. Without waiting for an answer, though, she went on with her voice broken by emotion: “It was destroyed.”

Immediately Cassian wore his usual emotionless mask, closing his eyelids in mourning for just a fleeting instant. He had trusted her with her life, but now with his sorrow. She didn’t know why but realizing this made her heart ache. 

She breathed deeply to regain her calm and ward off the sickness as Saw had taught her. Cassian was patiently waiting for her to speak again, showing the same emotion a rock would. Every time he wore that mask, she felt an almost overpowering urge to tear it away from his face in any way. She had managed it after Eadu, all right, but she had repented almost immediately of how deeply she had hurt him while doing it. “What do we do now?”

Cassian gazed at a squad of rebels loaded with equipment hurtle beside them. “I don’t have any precise order in an evacuation, I usually don’t remain long enough on Base One. Would you mind helping me gather my things, though? One more hand wouldn’t hurt.” And he smiled. Even if it was still uncertain, she really, really liked his smile. He could have asked almost anything of her with such a smile. 

“I’m coming with you”

His eyes were sad but his smile became a little larger. He started limping away, turning around to make sure she was following.

* * *

 

Cassian’s room was small and Spartan, but it was high enough in the ziggurat to offer a nice panoramic view of the rainforest. The humming of insects and the songs of birds were so loud that they could be heard even through the glass of the shut window. The room was almost empty. It didn’t take long to gather the few personal effects Cassian had.

“Is it true you almost beat Draven?”

“Yes.”

“ _ Karabast _ , you two really like each other.” Cassian was trying to wrap the mattress on the bunk with a single hand and he was being amazingly successful at it.

Jyn shrugged from her corner, playing it cool. “He’d called Bodhi a bag of bones.”

“Well, can you really blame him, given the state Bodhi was in when we found him?” Cassian made a wrong move and the mattress completely unwrapped. Unperturbed, he sighed and started again.

Jyn stayed impassive. “This is the Force taking revenge because you badmouthed Bodhi. Are you sure you don’t want help with that?”

“No, thanks. It’s training for when I’ll be on missions alone. Should I get injured, there wouldn’t be K2 to help me.” The sadness in his voice was so evident when he mentioned the droid that he grimaced at his own lack of discretion.

Jyn lost her patience and sat beside him on the bunk carved in rock, puffing and tearing the mattress away from him. “You might not go on missions alone.”

He turned sharply towards her and studied her for a second. “Are you volunteering?”

She kept staring at the mattress she was violently wrapping. “I never volunteer.”

As far as he knew, that might have been true for the testy and somewhat naive girl he had met two weeks before, but not for the young woman before him, who had fought and suffered to give the Rebellion one more chance at survival. Being around her had changed him, too, making him a better man. The prospect of losing Jyn and going back to what he had been without her filled him with cold terror. He needed to give her a reason to stay right away, or he would never have forgiven himself. Thus, throwing caution to the wind, he said: “Jyn Erso, would you like to be my copilot?” 

‘ _ Copilot? _ ’ Jyn froze, trying to control the chaos of contrasting emotions she suddenly felt, which went from joy to sheer terror. He wanted  _ her _ ? For real? Why? To what end? “What good is a copilot who can’t fly?”

“The copilot could learn.”

“You had better take Bodhi.”

“Bodhi can do nothing but fly, he has no idea how to fight.”

“Then teach him”, she said, offering him the mattress wrapped and tied, not daring to meet his eyes.

“I could take you both and have a crew like a real captain should.” His voice was warm and hopeful, it urged her to trust him. ‘ _ He has the face of a friend _ ’, Baze had said. But how could she trust a spy? Her usefulness to the Rebellion had run out a long time ago, so why did Cassian keep coming back to her? He had said: ‘ _ Welcome home _ ’, but what did he mean by that? Had he tried to seduce her, she would have been much less confused. She would have accepted (she wasn’t blind, after all) and she would have disappeared forever immediately after. It wouldn’t have been a bad way to end their acquaintance.

But this was not what was being offered: he was asking one more time to stop running and giving her an alternative.

“Why?”

“Why what?”

“Why me?”

“Forgive me, I didn’t mean to impose...”

“I’m not declining. I just want to know why you should choose me. Why you keep choosing me.”

It seemed to her that Cassian had stopped breathing for a heartbeat. “Because you gave me hope again.”

‘ _ But that’s what you did to me... _ ’ Jyn let the long silent be filled by the sounds of the jungle. She didn’t know what to say without revealing her own emotional turmoil. “Wait a second,” she said suddenly, turning towards him, “All those nice words about hope you told me on Jedha meant nothing, then?”

“Well, they worked, didn’t they?”

“Is that how you usually lure girls? Do you have a list of fancy phrases to say when the time is right?”

“You would be surprised by how useful that list is.”

Jyn chuckled. Cassian, with a thrill, realized it was the first time he heard her laugh and he would do anything to hear it again.

“Do you accept, then?”

“What, no fancy phrase this time?”

“I don’t want to lure you, I want to recruit you.”

She glanced at him through her lashes, fiddling with a clasp of the bag lying beside her. “I accept. But don’t expect me to call you captain.”

“I’ll try very hard to come to terms with it.”

Jyn looked suspiciously at his bandages and his swollen cheekbone. “And how are you?”

“Not bad, I just have a few broken bones. I’ll live.”

“I am glad. You made us worry a lot during the return trip...”

“I had worse...”

“Liar!”

He looked at her again, amused by the sharp retort, but he stayed silent for a moment to find a more truthful reply. “No, you’re right. I think I was messed up that badly only one in my life, but that time I had K2 with me and he started fixing me up immediately. He kept saying I would probably die, you know how he was, that jerk...”, and this time she didn’t argue. “Thank you for saving my life.”

“I just returned the favour”, she answered in a low voice. 

He wished to embrace her again, smell the scent of her hair, the warmth of her skin, but his courage failed him: he didn’t know how she would react and he didn’t want to embarrass her, especially not after miraculously eliciting her promise to stay. An unwanted contact might break the spell and make her go back on her word. 

Sighing internally, he glanced at the two duffel bags on the floor that contained all of his possessions. “Shall we go get something to eat? I am so hungry I could swallow a Bantha, I’ve been foisted intravenous solutions or baby food from the infirmary for the past week.” And, grabbing a duffel bag, he limped out for the last time of the room that had been his own without any wistful look.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The title of this chapter is taken from the song "November", by the German group Juli. The original verse is:
> 
>  
> 
> _Denn wir sind Schattenreiter, auf unserem Weg ins Licht_
> 
>  
> 
> I like to think that, had they survived, J&C would have found a way to heal each other :(


	7. Epilogue

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> J & B & C finally reunite and have a peaceful moment.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I have an Internet connection again! Yeee!  
> I apologize for my Spanish, but my knowledge of the language is at level "Sergio Leone's movies", which is when people tell you: "Spanish is like an Italian dialect, so just speak dialect to them and you'll understand each other perfectly", which of course is not true at all and you would just like to die with shame.

The transition out of the pressurized and almost odorless environment of a spaceship was always a slightly shocking experience for Bodhi. Even though intellectually he knew what to expect, his body was always taken by surprise by the changes in temperature and humidity. His nose suffered the most, suddenly attacked by a myriad of smells. For example, in every hangar worthy of its name there was always a lingering whiff of fuel. This time, when he came out of the flimsy ship he had been temporarily been assigned, he was struck the most by the sickly sweet scent of vegetation, the acrid smell of tarmac heated by the sun and the burning smell emanating from Antilles’ X-Wing. The pilot looked unharmed, but his ship had decidedly seen better days. He would have gone to him, had Antilles not been surrounded by half a dozen young women dressed sporting almost as many different uniforms, all of them with a concerned look on their faces.

He instead marched towards the inner part of the hangar because he had seen that Jyn was waiting for him in a quiet corner. She was safe and sound, just as she was when he had left her. Even though he’d had no reason to suspect otherwise, personally making sure of it made him feel a lot better. With a whiff of anxiety, he noticed that Cassian was not with her, but she wouldn’t smile to him if she had been worried for him, would she? It meant that Cassian was fine or out of immediate danger. But why was he not with her? Where had he gone? He would ask Jyn as soon as he reached her.

He was sorry she had hidden in the shadows because he thought she would deserve to always have the sun shine upon her. Jyn was kind, Jyn was strong, Jyn was beautiful. Jyn was going away without him. No no no, that wasn’t good, she couldn’t go away without him, he had to chase her! Ah, wait, she was turning around to make sure he was following. Of course, he would follow, he would follow her anyway. Even out of the hangar, into the depths of the base. She was limping more than in the morning, she had to have tired her ankle too much. 

Jyn dove in an empty office and finally stopped, whirling around and eyeing him with a critical look. “Your beard is unkempt again.”

Bodhi was stunned for a moment. “Oh… It-it might be.” That morning, when they finally had been allowed to wash and wear clean clothes, Bodhi had taken ages trying to fix his stupid beard because nobody had provided them any sharp instrument to shorten it or shave it. She had “helped” by teasing him and by giving him combing suggestions he had refused to try.

“You should have combed it into a Porg shape like I had suggested.”

“Absolutely not. W-Where’s Cassian? He hasn’t been stolen again, has he?”

“He’s gone to ask the princess not to force us to participate in the award ceremony she has organized for us and for Red 5.”

...Had he got that right? Bodhi felt the beginning of a panic attack. “An award ceremony? Here? Now? While the entire imperial fleet is gathering to come and obliterate us we stay here for a jolly  _ award ceremony _ ? It’s the stupidest thing I have ever heard! In my life! And I willingly flew to Scarif!”

“I know, I know, Cassian says that some generals believe that the public assignment of medals lifts the soldiers’ morale, so they do it sometimes...”

“THE EMPIRE KNOWS WE’RE HERE!”

“They do. Now calm down, though, the entire base will be completely evacuated by tonight.”

“JYN, THE EMPIRE IS COMING TO GET US AND THESE… THESE MASTERMINDS WASTE TIME GIVING US MEDALS!”

“Not to us.” Cassian’s calm and soothing voice behind him startled him. “They won’t give us medals, they’ll just award them to Red 5 and the owner of the junk heap the princess arrived on. They won’t even award the copilot ‘cause he’s a Wookie and his kind has weird rules regarding what can and what can’t be put around someone else’s neck.”

His friend’s appearance somewhat placated Bodhi. “Oh… all right… but the Empire...”

“How did you manage it?” Jyn cut him off, darting beside him and stopping at Cassian’s side, within his personal space. For a moment, Bodhi felt he was having a déjà vu: a similar scene had taken place on the  _ Rogue One _ , when they had successfully passed the planetary shield around Scarif and Jyn, elated, had rushed to Cassian. He had thought, then, that he would be witness to some display of affection, a kiss or something like that, instead they both had withdrawn embarrassedly at the last second. He had also believed that they were longtime comrades, instead he had learned with surprise that they had met merely two days before finding him.

Right now they were looking at each other as if they had forgotten about him and the whole galaxy. He had heard of such chemistries, especially in the holodramas his mother had been wont to watch: kindred souls that spent their lives looking for one another and that recognized each other almost at first glance. As much as he might admire Jyn’s strength and beauty, he had to recognize that she was destined to another, not to him. He realized he had unknowingly nurtured the hope of building with her something more than friendship when it died in his chest.

He brought himself to listen to Cassian’s answer with the impression of overhearing two lovers’ secrets. “I tracked down doctor Karamboola and I made him certify that I’m too poorly to parade in front of the whole Alliance. Apparently, in the ceremony they needed to award an officer in order to show that they retroactively approve of our mission and when I brought the paper to general Dodonna he immediately convinced the princess to award only the heroes of Yavin. I hope… I hope you don’t mind.” It seemed to Bodhi that Cassian had to make a conscious effort to tear his gaze from Jyn to himself, but maybe that was just the power of suggestion.

Jyn glanced at him looking for his approval, too, before answering: “Of course we don’t mind!”

“No, no, of course not...” He couldn’t deny that he felt relieved knowing he wouldn’t have to go through the ordeal of the ceremony. “But the Empire...”

" _ No te preocupes, amigo _ , we have long range scanners monitoring the whole system. Should the Empire arrive too soon, we would still have a little time to escape.”

“Oh...” This perspective was slightly reassuring, even though he would still prefer to go away as soon as possible. “So wh-what do we do now?”

“We might attend the award ceremony anyway if you feel like it, we don’t have anything else to do before evacuation.”

“We might if you say it’s safe...”

“Bodhi...” Jyn started to tentatively say something, then she stopped and shot a meaningful glance to Cassian.

The latter evidently understood, cleared his throat and said to him: “Bodhi, it seems like I need to look for a new copilot and a new partner for field missions. K2 used to do both, but K2 is gone, so I’m afraid I’ll have to set up a crew. Do you want to be in it and be my pilot?”

“Are-are you asking me to willingly put you and Jyn in dangerous situations and then rescue you soon after?”

Cassian grinned. “Have I ever asked you for anything else?”

He would need to face the Empire and its minions again and risk his life every day, without any guarantee of victory. He would need to transport the only two sentients who still cared for his well-being into deadly danger and he would be their only way out of it. It would be like Scarif over and over again. The thought scared him out of his wits, yet the hand he extended to accept the deal was firm and steady and there was no doubt in his mind that this was the right thing to do. “I accept, Captain.”

Cassian shook his hand with a satisfied half-smile, then he turned again towards Jyn, who was glowing with joy. “You see? He has no qualms to call me Captain.” Again that look in their eyes, that flicker of something he couldn’t begin to understand. He would need to get used to it, apparently.    
  


* * *

The award ceremony took place in an enormous hall at the summit of the temple and all three of them followed it from the shadows in the back, as was Cassian’s custom. The awards were given to the three men directly responsible for the destruction of the Death Star: a blond, bland boy, a dashing guy, and a Wookie. 

Jyn wouldn’t have expected much from the bland boy, so her mind was blown when she found out that not only was he the Red 5 who had struck the fatal blow to the Death Star’s reactor, he was also a Jedi apprentice and he had a real lightsaber.

The ceremony was as short as it had been promised. The princess personally presented the medals before delivering an impassioned speech in memory of the people hit by the calamity that had been the Death Star, the citizens of Jedha and Alderaan, innocent victims of the Emperor’s evil policies. She honored the fallen comrades who had given their lives to reach this momentous revenge, first of all, Galen Erso, an unknown and almost forgotten hero. Her words were so emphatic that even Jyn was almost convinced that Galen’s beloved daughter was Leia and not herself. Finally, to end the ceremony, the princess asked a minute of silence to honor the soldiers fallen in the battles of Scarif and Yavin. Jyn was thought sadly about Chirrut, who had believed in her even before knowing her, and Baze, who had called her little sister when they had spoken for the last time. Squeezing the crystal hung around her neck, she hoped that the two monks were together wherever the souls of the dead went. With a last nod from the princess, the hall emptied and everyone walked in an orderly fashion to the ships readied for evacuation. 

Jyn and Bodhi, completely lacking any luggage, helped Cassian with his bags, who, limping and still at the beginning of his recovery, was now spent after the long day, even though he tried his best not to show it. By a stroke of luck, they managed to be taken aboard the same ship even though it was almost full. Because of this, they had to sit on the floor. The thief and the pilot forced the spy to sit between them: neither would allow Cassian to be taken away from them a second time. And if being his bodyguard on so crowded a ship meant that her neighbours pushed her into his side, well, Jyn didn’t mind at all.

During the trip, Jyn leaned her head wearily on Cassian’s shoulder and took a look around. He had dozed off immediately after take-off. On Cassian’s other side, Bodhi, hugging one of his friend’s bags, was sleeping deeply, too.

She couldn’t help but notice how different this Rebellion was from Saw’s. Saw had run a war of ideas, where people were only important as long as they benefited the cause. Even though she was convinced he had really cared for her and had thought of her as his daughter, emotional connections were strongly discouraged in his group of fighters because no one wanted to suffer for having cared for someone who would probably die the next day.

In the Alliance, on the other hand, people were much more important than ideals: nobody was forgotten or abandoned, not even her father Galen, who for so long had been regarded as a monster serving the Emperor’s tyranny. Around her there, here on the ship, there were whole families who huddled together for comfort. It was clear that emotional attachments were not considered a problem here.

She gazed again at her sleeping friends and for a moment, a fleeting moment she wondered what it would be like to travel and fight with them at her side. Then, yielding to exhaustion, she snuggled up a bit more comfortably against Cassian and fell asleep, too.   


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I know I keep throwing emotional rocks at Bodhi, but it didn't feel right to me that a heterosexual man (yes, my version of Bodhi is hetero) could spontaneously decide to be just friends with a gal like Jyn.  
> I had to quote _Lilo & Stitch_ because Ohana means family and family means that... ehm, well, you know.  
> So this work is finished, now! Maybe. I might write a sequel. Muahahahaha.

**Author's Note:**

> This is my first fanfiction ever. It sat there for months while I polished it, but it never seemed quite satisfying to me. Oh well.
> 
> The title is from the last verse of the _Inferno_ in Dante's _Divine Comedy_ :  
> " _E quindi uscimmo a riveder le stelle._ "  
> It refers to when Dante and Virgilio finally exit the cave where Hell is into Purgatory and can again see the stars, which represent Heaven. It is a beautiful verse, and it symbols the return of hope (in Dante's case, in God's salvation) after a hopeless journey.


End file.
